Kelly McParland: Leak machine chugs away on Obama’s reputation

Leak machine chugs away on Obama's reputation

The situation in Syria may be coming to a head. There are no U.S. troops in or near Syria (that anyone will admit). There’s a presidential election soon and there’s a danger Barack Obama won’t get any credit if Bashar Assad falls and he’s not viewed as having helped the revolt against him.

So, magically, there’s a leak. A really big leak. A leak so big that every newspaper this side of the Podunk Pedestrian has it: The President, sources say, signed a secret order authorizing U.S. assistance to the Syrian rebel forces.

Obama’s order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence finding broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust President Bashar al-Assad, says the report.

It’s not clear when he signed the order, which is helpful. When the Washington Postreported in July that the CIA and Israeli operatives had been working quietly with Syrian rebels “for several weeks” under “a non-lethal directive that allows the United States to evaluate groups and assist them with command and control,” he was criticized by one of its columnists for taking his sweet time.

“The crisis is nearly 18 months old. Why did we wait until now to put operatives in the field?” asked Jennifer Rubin.

Leaks have been good to Obama. When a “double agent” (who doesn’t really appear to have been “double”, but just an agent) foiled a terrorist plot in Yemen, it was leaked. When mysterious cyberattacks appeared to succeed in messing seriously with Iran’s nuclear program, and everyone immediately pointed the finger at Israel, it was leaked that, hey, the U.S. was in on it too. The New York Timesreported that, “from his first months in office,” the president had “secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities.” (See, the president was WAY AHEAD of the game when it comes to Iran).

Lots of details have leaked out about the drone war that is said to be decimating the ranks of al Qaeda terrorists. When Republicans persisted in suggesting the president was a wimp because he hadn’t started a single war, was pulling troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, it was leaked that he liked to personally go over “kill lists” of terrorists and pick out the targets.

The White House has been indignant at suggestions all these leaks are just a little too convenient.

“The notion that my White House would purposefully release classified national security information is offensive, it’s wrong,” Obama said when asked about the “kill list” report. “My policy has been zero tolerance for these leaks and information.”

The New York Times, which broke several of the stories, was sympathetic in its assessment.

“Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will” it reported after running the initial story. He didn’t just arbitrarily pick targets from a list: he asked probing questions and felt the weight of his responsibility, it said.

Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical. He had vowed to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values; the chart, introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order, underscored just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be.

Not everyone is so understanding. Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, suggested that presidential aides were leaking national security information to help Obama’s foreign policy credentials, and started an investigation. Mitt Romney, this year’s candidate, suggested Obama’s people had blabbed too much about the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, all for ther glorification of the president, and called it “contemptible.”

Now the search for leakers is so intense, writes the Times, that it’s “casting a distinct chill over press coverage of national security issues as agencies decline routine interview requests and refuse to provide background briefings.” The Senate is considering legislation that would limit journalists’ access to intelligence officials. And the White House itself insists it’s determined to find out who is giving reporters all this secret material that makes Mr. Obama look so good. As The Times notes:

The Obama administration has set a record for prosecuting leaks of classified information to the news media, with six cases to date, more than under all previous presidents combined.

What do you want to bet they don’t find anyone? At least, not before the election. And after that, it won’t need leaks any more.

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